


Somehow Get To You

by dreamsaremadeofthis



Category: Pinto - Fandom, Star Trek AOS RPF, Star Trek RPF, Wordplay as Foreplay - Fandom
Genre: Coming Out, M/M, Mentioned death-not our guys, PLEASE HEED TAGS, Pandemic disease of 2020, Pinto, Pinto de Mayo, Pinto de Mayo 2020, Potential Triggers, Star Trek AOS RPF - Freeform, Wordplay as foreplay, friends to lovers to more than lovers, quarantined
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24023209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsaremadeofthis/pseuds/dreamsaremadeofthis
Summary: An Audio Love Letter...(aka:   Chris Can't Hide From Himself Anymore)
Relationships: Chris Pine/Zachary Quinto
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11
Collections: The Pinto Bar





	Somehow Get To You

_"I just can't do this anymore, Z—seeing you like this, so dispirited._

_Tell me, which is worse? Being with someone who hurts you? Or hurting because they're gone? Because you are hurting. Maybe no one else can tell, but I can. You're feeling completely abandoned. So alone._

_I know your fur babies are there keeping you company, thank God. But...I mean the big "A" Alone._

_Without me._

_Zach, I finally realize...it's not just now, these last few catastrophic weeks._

_The truth is...the ugly truth is that this is nothing new. You've felt abandoned by me for years. At least in the way you needed me most._

_I get it now, Zach, I do._

_At the core, from the beginning, it's my fault. I was the one who couldn't handle coming out...not all at once. You alone know what I went through when I was younger. But I always meant that I would, eventually. Just...gradually. Small steps._

_Not like you, throwing the windows and doors of your life wide open for the entire world to see, letting the sun shine on your face, all courage and strength and beauty and pride, WEARING exactly who you are._

_I was a coward. Such a shirking coward. I mean, I said all the right things, even to the media. But I didn't DO the right things. And Zach, I've suffered for it, deep down inside every...single...day. I—_

_..._

(Note to self _—_ Stop, you egregious shit! Delete that line. There's no comparing MY 'suffering' to Zach's. I never gave him any say in this choice to shroud myself in half-truths.)

...

_I've always known I'd break easily. And I just couldn't face that back then, Zach. For me...it all seemed too personal....too HUGE._

_I wasn't ready to become that vulnerable; to open myself to stereotyping and dissection under the microscope of a world's preconceptions._

_And yet, turns out I am anyway. Every fucking day..._ {sigh}

_Because it's taken me so long, I still didn't exactly break._

_More like, I fucking **SHATTERED.**_

_Watching your posts these past few weeks has utterly wrecked me. Watching you, day after day, alone in your condo. Alone with your sweet, slobbering babies, and with your banjo. Still so damned grateful you finally reactivated your IG, and I can check in and see you're alive, surviving this cruel devastation collapsing all around us, especially where you are._

_I mean, Z, if something ever were to happen to you...I don't....I don't know...._ {sniff} _...I couldn't....  
_

...

_Sorry. I had to.....the...clothes dryer._

_You're alone. Because I'm not there. Your condo could be full of friends, both the two- and four-legged kind_ {snicker} _but you would still feel a kind of emptiness because I'm not there._

_I finally get it because I'm living that, too. Here, in LA._

_And I can't bear living in limbo anymore. I've finally found my voice. Somehow our...MY brokenness is rebuilding me, making me stronger. Resolute._

_So I can promise you now, Zach: from this day forward, you jump, I jump. Butch and Sundance. Yes, you can be Butch, asshole. Just don't forget—they both had dreamy BLUE eyes._

_And now when I'm ready, I can't get to you. I can't just hop on a plane; I don't know if it's even safe to drive across the country in this lockdown. I mean, gas stations? Restrooms? Hotels must be just a teeming cauldron of virus and disease from the many who slept there before. There's no way to sterilize every touch point, to kill all the virus. It's impossible._

_I'm not doing that and then bring it all to your doorstep. I will never...ever...hurt you again, Zach. Never._

_Never._

_Maybe traversing the country and then us getting sick and dying in each other's arms makes for...well, an angsty, ill-starred Shakespeare tragedy at The Globe._

_Unthinkably cruel for us._

_So what do I do?_

_Tell you the truth now, though I can't get to you, so you sit there alone, waiting, wanting me?_

_Maybe you do that already. I know I do._

_Or do I appeal to my better angels and be patient, be stronger, less selfish? Hold off till this whole thing is over? Then fly to you and show up on your doorstep and pull you into my arms and tell you then? When we can actually DO something about it._

_I want you, Zach. All of you. I don't want another day without you._

_I've finally grown up._

_I know you're making the best of it all. That's who you are. You don't cave for anything or anybody._

_But you're wistful, surrounded by disease and death and the loss of so many people you've worked with, spent time with, cared about...performed for._

_We're all in stunned disbelief watching the news every day._

_How those who didn't make it—their uniqueness, their individuality—is diminished to nothing more than a terrifying number ticked off amidst hundreds...thousands of other numbers on a clipboard, reported numbly to the rest of the world; the sheer staggering weight of it all blurring together, stealing the dignity every single one of them deserves._

_Medical professionals surrendering their own personal rituals, denied those much needed private moments of grief for each patient they fought valiantly to save. Because there were just.so.many. An unending line of gravely ill arriving by the hour to take their place._

_And your own vibrancy shackled. That's not you. It's like you're forced to cage your inner creative—and very hot—sexy beast. I LOVE that beast._

_At this point, I'm willing to walk across the desert and the great plains and the great bridges to get to you._

_Just weeks ago, nothing was between us but distance._

_Well....and my stubbornness...my paralyzing fear._

_Only five and a half hours—330 minutes—19,800 agonizingly impatient seconds in the air and then I'd be inside you, you'd be inside me. Writhing and wriggling and panting and sweating and moaning obscenities and..... And giggling._

_How long since we laughed together?_

_I can hardly remember the last time we just....touched each other; shook hands, hugged, flirted...fell helplessly into each other's eyes._

_So little to laugh about now, with an entire planet in crisis. In mourning._

_It's the plot to the most godawful horror movie. I've already starred in that film. I had no idea I'd be actually living it. We'd all be forced to live it._

_And you and I would be stuck a million, million miles apart._

_I want you._

_No! That's such a tiny, cheap understatement compared to the vastness of how very much I want you._

_I want us. I ACHE for us. Right now._

_I want to fall straight into the Chris-shaped void in your heart and fill it to overflowing._  
  
_I know it's there because you tried to show me, tried so hard to get me to look, all those years ago. And when I glimpsed it, I panicked. Zach, I fucking panicked and turned away._

_That was....one of the biggest, most unconscionable mistakes of my entire life._

_Inexcusable. Just...unforgivable._

_What if it's...irreparable?_

_I can no longer rationalize the things I said, or that I did. Or that I should have done but didn't. I don't know how I'll ever be able to forgive myself._

_I will never ask you to._

_What if....I tell you now and you can't stand to do anything but reject me? Would your scarred heart recoil from taking such a tremendous leap of faith with me ever again?_

_Because we both know after all this time, I don't deserve another chance._

_**I know what it cost you** way back then; that day you offered me your heart, your life...your ring._

_Believe me ba...Zach, I know._

_I could never blame you for taking your turn to turn away._

_With your every post, I long for you to play banjo for me, those crinkles of joy around your eyes and teeth sparkling in your silly grins._

_In person._

_I need to roll around in the floor with you, tugging chew toys with Skunk and River, watching you glow all over with puppy-dog love._

_...Arturo..._

_Can you feel me calling out to you? Can you somehow sense there's been a transformative pivot point for me?_

_I think the entire world's population will come out of this changed. Appreciating the little things we took for granted before._

_Me appreciating this huge thing between us that I took for granted so long._

_I want....."  
  
  
_ **"WHAT THE FUCKING HELL!"**

I jump three feet straight up out of my office chair, elbow skittering my coffee cup across the floor, shocked at the ear-splitting chime of my doorbell. How's that possible? It's been weeks since anyone has unexpectedly shown up at my door. It's illegal for anyone to be out.... _ **Oh God no**_....my parents? My sister? Has one of them become infected?

I mindlessly drop my voice recorder and rush to the door scared to death, wrenching it open.

I.....freeze.....

"Zaaaach." I breathe, too stunned to believe my own eyes...

"It's....is it really you? But how? Zach, you...you're breaking the la—"

Zach lunges at me, claiming my mouth with ravenous, desperate lips, face wet, eyes still teary. He's suddenly everywhere; he's all I know. Clutching arms fiercely enveloping me, fingers clawing at my back, my ass, my neck. Muscular body firm against me, practically lifting me up.

Dogs barking...in some distant universe.

My mind blanks out, I can barely hang on. I cannot begin to process this outrageous scenario where...like out of a dream, my intrepid paladin is at my doorstep...mauling me.

...

Out there in that lonely universe, a horrific preview of Armageddon; a world still flails with not nearly enough answers...and no solutions.

In here, it's over. The specter which for years loomed over us, between us, is now vanquished. No more emptiness...what started as this tiny ember of hope is now a blazing wildfire inside Zach's welcoming, beautiful heart; grateful our love is finally freed.

Zach—generous, forgiving, eternal...somehow is here within me.

Time stands still, our breath seizing as we passionately join our lives, our bodies...and in sweet release, come together.

_(*AN: I couldn't take it anymore. I wondered if maybe a certain someone out there couldn't either. Also, I'm thinking that _much_ later when Zach ~~sneaked around~~ stumbled across Chris's recorder and listened to his letter, Zach definitely would mete out some punishment for calling his babies "slobbering." )_


End file.
